Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too… depending upon weather conditions.

Aloha Paragraphs

Major high surf event…be very careful on the north and
west shores through Friday!We’ll find southwest winds veering to north and northeast
into Friday…first on Kauai

A weakening cold front will bring a modest increase in
showers, with another Sunday into Monday…and then a
more dynamic cold front around the middle of next
week – followed by generally dry, sunny weather Friday
into next weekend…and quite chilly at the same time

High Surf Advisory…north and west shores of all the
islands

High Surf Warning…north and west shores of Kauai,
Oahu and Molokai, and the north shore of Maui

Small Craft Advisory…all coastal and channel waters

The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions as of Thursday evening:

Generally light southwest winds, with a brief period of trade winds returning Friday into Saturday, then light and variable breezes Sunday…with a return to southeast, south and southwesterly winds next week ahead of a strong cold front by Wednesday. Here’s the latestweather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean. ~~~ We find a weak near 1016 millibar high pressure system well to the west-northwest of the state, moving rapidly eastward. At the same time, we see a very deep, near 953 millibar storm low pressure system well to our north, with an associated cold front moving through the central islands. These weather features will keep our winds from the southwest, becoming trade winds in the wake of the cold front into Saturday.Satellite imageryshows generally clear to partly cloudy skies over the state from Maui County to the Big Island…with frontal showers over Kauai and Oahu. We can see the leading edge of the cold front moving through the central islands, having passed over Kauai and Oahu during the day…with a modest increase in showers. Here’s the looping radar image, showing showers falling over the ocean locally, with the front’s showers over Kauai and Oahu at the time of this writing. Looking at this larger satellite image, which is in the looping mode, we can see a frontal cloud band entering into the state…bringing its generally light showers with it.

A weakening cold front has brought an increase in showers…although nothing heavy by any means. Thursday’s is the first of a couple of weak cold fronts, with another slated to arrive late in the weekend into early next week. Then, the models show yet another cold front, this one is expected to be considerably stronger, forecast to arrive by the middle of next week. Meanwhile, with all the gale and storm low pressure systems now active in our north Pacific, we’ll see large and very large high surf events during the next week. These will require great caution when getting near the ocean on our north and west facing shores! These waves will be the largest that we’ve seen since last year, bordering if not reaching huge proportions along on north and west shores! ~~~ I’ll be back early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Thursday night wherever you happen to be reading from! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:Carbon Emissions in U.S. Rise 2 Percent Due to Increase in Coal – Carbon dioxide emissions rose two percent in the U.S. last year, according to preliminary data from the Energy Information Administration. Emissions rose largely due to increased coal consumption, the first such rise in U.S. emissions since 2010. Still, the annual emissions remain well below the peak hit in 2007 when emissions hit 6 billion tons.

The U.S. emitted around 5.38 billion tons of CO2 last year from burning fossil fuels, up from 5.27 billion tons in 2012. The rise in emissions is linked to increased coal consumption during the second half of 2013 when rising natural gas prices made coal more competitive. Coal is the world’s most carbon-intensive fuel source.
The Obama Administration has pledged to the global community to cut emissions 17 percent by 2020 based on 2005 levels.

While the U.S. does not have national legislation to cut carbon dioxide emissions, they are falling due to a slower economy, improved energy efficiency, increased renewable energy sources, and coal power being increasingly substituted with natural gas. Up-coming regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on new and existing energy plants are expected to further rein-in the nation’s coal consumption. Experts say that these new regulations will likely lead to emissions decreasing again.

The U.S. is currently the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide after China, and the world’s biggest historical emitter.